In the 2001 American drama "Phantom Soldier", there is a scene in which two American veterans introduce a Shosha machine gun to recruits during World War I, and after explaining various ways to use it, they also emphasize that it is a "garbage". Many history buffs today also quote this statement, so is the Shosha machine gun "the most trashy weapon ever built"? The answer is yes, but for its many shortcomings, people should be most concerned about its magazine and the common disease of easy jamming when shooting.
During the First World War, soldiers using the Shosha machine gun were almost mercilessly shot by the enemy, and the gun was easy to jam so that the soldiers had no ability to fight back, and even people once doubted whether the gun was a "spy weapon" of the Allies. Of course, it would certainly be irresponsible to attribute all the Allied losses to the Shosha machine guns.
In World War I, Allied soldiers were killed, mostly from German machine guns and cannons, as well as Spanish flu, rather than a French machine gun with a black cauldron. The claim that the casing of Shosha machine guns killed soldiers was clearly exaggerated, and most small arms at the time would be jammed in the muddy trench warfare, not just the Shosha family.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the origin of the Shosha machine gun</h1>
In fact, many people ignored the innovation of the Shosha machine gun, when the countries of the world were generally using water-cooled cooling, bullet chain supply, tripod fixed Maxim heavy machine gun, this weapon in the ability to defend the point is very good; at the same time, the birth of the trench and the Maxim machine gun also has a lot to do, it turned the First World War into a "purgatory war".
More than 10 years before the outbreak of war, Louis Chauchat, a French weapons designer, had realized the potential of individual weapons, and the French infantry needed a portable machine gun or automatic rifle. So Louis Sausa first conceived of a weapon that would allow soldiers to shoot on foot, and also had a high rate of fire, at least capable of killing bolt-action rifles at the time.
At the same time, the French military rifle is the Bettier MLE190715 bolt-action rifle, which has only a 3 rounds capacity, so if Louis Saussau introduces a 20-round automatic weapon, it will undoubtedly become a revolutionary weapon of the French military. However, this was too radical for the French military, and all the weapons of the military were decided by the Rifle Committee, which is why when the First World War broke out in 1914, the French military still used the same weapons as in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and the damn French Rifle Committee was to blame.
After the outbreak of World War I, the casualties of Allied soldiers increased, relying on traditional bolt-action rifles was obviously unable to break through the German defense line, which the United States tried its best to develop semi-automatic rifles, but what was obtained was the Pederson device. At the same time, the French military was not idle, and in 1915 they became interested in the 1915 TYPE CSRG machine gun, which is what we commonly call the "Shosha light machine gun".
As the war grew on a larger scale, the Shosha machine gun was soon put into production, initially by two converted civilian factories, gladiators and Sidam. The Shosha machine gun is very similar to the French style of the First World War, and once decided, it will be implemented recklessly; the Shosha machine gun is the same, and it has not yet been tested and improved to begin mass production, the consequence is that the gun has many irreparable defects in use, but it is too late.
The design of the Shosha machine gun is very rough, the material does not meet the standard, the failure rate of the weapon is extremely high, it is obvious that this is the helpless choice of the French military, more similar to the german and Japanese weapons at the end of World War II, trying to use this immature weapon to change the outcome of the war, often turning a blind eye to its shortcomings.
< H1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the innovation and design of the Shosha machine gun</h1>
Those who criticize Louis Shosha always ignore the advantages of the Shosha machine gun, unlike the Maxim machine gun, which was mainly used for defense; the Shosha machine gun was designed as an offensive weapon from the beginning, and even the Danish Madsen light machine gun was still mainly used for defense, and the performance in the offensive was not ideal.
The Imperial Army improved the bipod for the Maxim machine gun, added a hand grip, and used a 100-round chain, but it was still unable to move freely in the battlefield. The MG08/15 light Maxim machine gun weighs 27 kg, while the French Sausa machine gun weighs only 9 kg, a difference of 3 times. The Shosha machine gun was a single-soldier weapon for the French infantry, but also had two "extremely advanced" firing modes: fully automatic and semi-automatic.
Although the Shosha machine gun is defined as an offensive weapon, it has a bipod, so it performs very well in defense. And the Shosha machine gun is also the first automatic weapon to use a pistol grip and a straight stock, with a detachable magazine, which can be quickly fired when moving, and the comfort is extremely high.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the disadvantages of the Shosha machine gun</h1>
Despite all the explanations, Shosha is still the worst machine gun in history, and the biggest problem is that the gun uses a hollow magazine, which is very easy to jam once it enters dust and debris when shooting. Of course, in trench warfare, many rifles will be stuck, but the failure rate of Shosha machine guns is too high, and in World War I, France also provided 30,000 Shosha machine guns to the US army, so the US military's criticism of it continued until the war.
In fact, the first batch of Shosha machine guns issued to the US military has been used for about 2 years, and many spare parts have begun to age, so the performance in the battlefield is very bad, it is said that no US military was willing to use Shosha machine guns at that time.
First, France provided the U.S. military with 16,000 8 mm Shosha machine guns, but the U.S. military wanted to use uniform caliber ammunition, so France delivered 19,000 .30-06 Shosha machine guns to the U.S. army to match the caliber of the Springfield M1903 rifle. Of course, this is also most likely one of the root causes of the failure of the Shosha machine gun, including the later test in 1994, which was well demonstrated, and the test result was that the Shosha machine gun had a large problem with the shell when using Springfield ammunition, which may be caused by the non-compliance of the breech and ammunition standards.
Another reason may be psychological problems, when the U.S. military entered World War I, they seemed to be ready for battle, but the arrogant U.S. military did not like to use weapons from other countries. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, they also had two weapons to choose from in place of the Shosha machine gun.
The first was a Lewis-style light machine gun, which was developed by U.S. Army Colonel I. N. Lewis designed it, but during his tenure it had a great disagreement with William Crozier, the director of the U.S. Ordnance Bureau, so Colonel Lewis resigned resolutely and ran to England with his design. Later, naturally, the Lewis machine gun was also adopted in the British, and it was widely used in World War I with great success.
The first American troops to travel to Europe initially used Lewis light machine guns near the Argonne Forest, but were later forced to adopt the extremely rare, and unknown to call them, the Shosha machine gun.
The second automatic weapon favored by American soldiers was the M1918 Browning automatic rifle, which had been developed as early as 1917 when the United States declared war. But due to john Joseph Pershing's obstruction, the American troops entering Europe did not carry Browning automatic rifles, and he had a very absurd excuse that he was afraid that the British would copy Browning's design. "Therefore, I obviously have a good gun at home, but I don't let it be used, and I have to use rotten weapons from other countries, so it is no wonder that the US military is not convinced."
During the war, more than 100,000 Shosha machine guns were produced, and after the end of the war, the French army no longer used them, but in other countries, Shosha machine guns have achieved good results. Shosha machine guns were also heavily used in Russia during World War I, until the Russian Civil War, when the Red and White Armies and the Blue Army of the Republic of Poland were in use. The armies of the German Empire also used a large number of captured Shosha machine guns, which I think may prove that the Shosha machine gun is not as useless as we think, otherwise how could even the enemy want to use it, at least to prove that it is not bad.
There are even some theories that the French used the Shosha machine gun in the Indochina Peninsula, which later fell into the hands of the North Vietnamese forces. In short, the shosha machine gun's influence is not necessarily the best or worse, and it is not so much the worst weapon as an immature light machine gun.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Shosha machine gun in movies and games</h1>
The Shosha machine gun is indeed relatively rare, and even in the film and television drama, it appeared the most in 2001's "Phantom Soldier", of course, in this drama it was rated as a "garbage" weapon. The Shosha machine gun first appeared in public view in the 1937 Soviet film Za Sovetskuyu Rodinu (For the Motherland), which depicts the Soviet-Finnish War between 1921 and 1922, the gun first served in the Russian Imperial Army and later into the hands of the Soviet Red Army, but the Shosha machine gun had a very low rate of appearance in the film.
Shosha machine gun in Phantom Men
In the 1996 French World War I film Capitaine Conan, the Shosha machine gun first appeared on Western screens. The Shosha machine gun was most recently featured in the 2004 American film About a Long Marriage in the Romantic Age and in Amazon's The Great War in 2019.
In addition, in the game, the Shosha machine gun also appears in Verdun and Battlefield 1, as well as in a number of first-person shooter games, players can enjoy the use of Shosha machine gun for combat. Of course, in most games, players also generally complain that the Shosha machine gun is the worst weapon.
Shosha machine gun from Battlefield 1